1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a binary counter which can be assembled or incorporated in the form of a semiconductor integrated circuit, and more particularly to an inverter for use in a binary counter constituted of insulated gate field effect transistors in a semiconductor integrated circuit.
2. Description of Related Art
In dynamic memories formed of insulated gate field effect transistors such as metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) transistors, a binary counter has been required for an internal refresh operation because it needs address increment or address decrement. Typically, the binary counter is a synchronous binary counter driven by first and second clocks for precharge and activation, respectively. Conventionally, this synchronous binary counter mainly includes an inverter adapted to generate a binary counter signal, and a carry signal generator for inverting the condition of the inverter. This inverter includes a first flip-flop for outputting the binary counter signal and a second flip-flop for latching the output data in a previous cycle.
On the other hand, for address increment or decrement in the refresh of the dynamic memory, there are needed binary counters of the same number as the bit number of an address output signal. However, if there are used the conventional binary counters incorporating a pair of flip-flops in each inverter section, since the inverters need a large number of transistors, the dynamic memory chip inevitably becomes large.